“Why? Why? Why my sons?” Xiong questions emptily in between sobs. “What did they do to deserve such a horrible death?”
Up to this point, nobody has been able to answer why her three sons were shot down by a family acquaintance during a low-key party that occurred just yards away from her own doorsteps.
Police in the small Wisconsin town of Menomonie are themselves at a loss as to why the tragic shootings took place on the evening of Saturday, August 15.
"The best information we have is the gunman got into an argument with people at the party and pulled a handgun and shot the three brothers and the fourth victim," said Menomonie Police Chief Wayne Stolpa.
After their initial findings, Chief Stolpa confirmed that a lone gunman opened fire on a small group of party attendees who had gathered outside the trailer home. The resident at that trailer home, Siong Kong, 25, along with his two brothers Toua Kong, 32, and Seng Kong, 13. The suspected gunman Geu Tou Vang, 23, reportedly shot himself at the scene. He would die the next morning at a nearby hospital.
Police say a fifth man, Toua Xiong, 25, was also shot and injured in the neck and hands. His wounds would prove not to be fatal as he was released from the hospital after a brief stay.
Although alcohol was recovered at the scene, Chief Stolpa indicated to the press that further information about the incident would be released upon completion of crime lab analysis being performed by the Wisconsin State Police as well as a more thorough autopsy and toxicology report being performed in Minnesota.
Police have offered that an argument over liquor occurred prior to the shootings, however family members who attended the party say that story had been exaggerated in the media.
“There was some confusion over a bottle of Patron Tequila, but that had been resolved 15 to 30 minutes before the shooting,” said PK (names have been omitted in concerns for their safety), a Kong brother who briefly stepped away from the party. “There weren’t any shouting, no arguing, no tension. Things were peaceful that night.”
Party goers might have been ‘buzzed’ say those who attended, but not drunk.
“Things were cool that night,” added NH, a cousin of the Kongs who was inside the trailer home washing dishes during the shootings. “Most of us knew each other at the party. We played football, barbequed, and then had this small gathering of friends. It was peaceful.”
The on-site manager for the Evergreen Isle Trailer Park, Jeff Meixner, confirms the peaceful nature of the party.
“If it weren’t for the extra cars parked outside that evening, you wouldn’t be able to tell that there was a party going on. It was a mellow gathering, as far as parties go.”
With his own trailer situated less than 20 yards away from the party, Meixner had been attentive to the happenings within the closely knit trailer park as his job requires of him.
The first sign of trouble all evening were the bursts of gunshots which immediately alarmed Meixner off his couch. “I knew it couldn’t be firecrackers or anything like that. It was surely gun fire.”
What happened next was described by Meixner as “pure chaos”.
With screams of horror screeching from the scene, party goers began scurrying away. Some jumped in their cars and some ran off by foot.
Meixner acted on instinct. After a quick glance at the flurry of activity, he called 911. Arriving at the murder scene, he immediately found the gun. When he noticed party goers attempting to leave with their vehicles, Meixner picked the gun up and pointed it at their car.
“It all happened so fast, I didn’t have enough time to think about the potential danger I was in. All I could think about was trying to prevent anybody from leaving.”
All four bodies were laying on the ground before him. For the first time since all this began, Meixner realized that he was at the scene of a mass murder with victims who he knew on a first-name basis.
“The Kong family are really nice folk,” Meixner recalled. “The older ones, I talked to at passing. But the youngest kid, Seng, he was always riding his bike and playing outside. Everybody around here like him.”
When he eventually found out from police that the scene had been a murder-suicide, it surprised Meixner because he found the gun more than 10 feet away from the reported gunman’s hands.
Shrugging his shoulders, he surmises that somebody may have kicked or even picked the gun up during the chaos of trying to leave the scene.
Other oddities from the scene are troubling the family as they too are trying to put the pieces together.
Pointing to an area nearly 20 feet away from where the shooter’s body was found, one family member indicated that a bullet casing was found in an area completely away from where the gunman was reported to have been standing.
Adding to the suspicion that another gun was at the scene, the family member points out what appears to be a bullet hole that could have been fired from within the trailer home.
Perhaps the most perplexing bit of information came from Toua Kong’s widow, Susan Vang, when she proclaimed that ten minutes prior to the shootings, a friend of Geu Tou Vang approached her with a cryptic message: “After tonight, you will not have a husband or brother-in-laws.”
According to family accounts, she didn’t think too much of that statement, shrugging it off as an idle warning of some sort. Looking back at it now, however, she believes the shootings were somehow planned and that there could possibly be more than one perpetrator.
Compounding their sorrow from losing three sons, the family is extremely upset over the conduct of the police throughout this ordeal.
“First of all, they left all four bodies unprotected from the pouring rain that evening,” offered the mom. “And when we went to place umbrellas to shield the bodies, police removed the umbrellas and used it for themselves.”
The family questions whether the police did a thorough job of securing the premise and of interrogating party goers. In one instance, a group of girls came out from hiding an hour after the shooting. Upon returning, family members insisted that police also question them, only to get a non-response from police.
Furthermore, police have been completely uncooperative to the family, even to answer the most basic questions.
“We feel like maybe we’ve done something wrong here,” says one cousin. “Everything we know is through the media. The police wont talk to us directly.”
Although Menomonie police did not return messages left by Hmong Today, Police Chief Stolpa responded to the alleged mistreatment and questions of the Kong family to the Dunn County News by stating “his department doesn’t have a lot of experience with this type of crime.”
The last murder in Menomonie occurred in 1995 and before that in 1987, according to reports.
As for a second gun-man, Stolpa is adamant about their version of the scene. “There was no evidence to suggest that there was a second gunman.”
What is known about the reported gun-man Geu Tou Vang and his possible motive?
Decorated along the walls of Legacy Funeral Home in St. Paul are a variety of photos depicting a smiling, fun loving young man. Mixed in with the photos are a number of poems declaring the young man’s love and affection towards his family members, in particular his nieces and nephews.
Childhood photos show this young man as a bright-eyed youth, surrounded by pets and family members. One photos shows this child busily at work on the family farm. The caption reads, “Tou doing what he loves most, farming”.
The wall is a memorial for Geu Tou Vang, the reported gun-man who slain the three brothers before turning the gun on himself. These images are a far cry away from the purported gang member who police say was charged with beating a rival gang member with a bat in 2005. Hennepin County records show that Vang had served a 4-year probation sentence for that attack. His probation had ended in July.
Police records indicate that Vang was a member of the Purple Brothers gang. An expert on Asian gangs, St. Paul Police Officer Rich Straka (who doesn’t know Vang personally) confirmed that the Purple Brothers gang is an especially violent gang whose menacing ways have been highlighted in recent news reports.
Although family members declined to speak to Hmong Today, Yi Vang spoke to the Star Tribune about his brother, declaring how perplexed their family was after they found out their brother had been found to be the gun-man.
“The motive, what’s the motive?” Yi questioned in the Star Tribune article. “Why would he shoot someone for no reason?”
Yi went on to defend his brother in the report by proclaiming he was not a gang member as the media reported, but had gang connections.
“He was a very good son, a very kind guy,” Yi continues in the report. “He loved kids, he loved animals.”
A friend of Vang’s commented that he didn’t seem to be the murdering type when they had spent time together in Mankato. “He was a curious kid, always asking questions. Kind of a follower, if you asked me.”
It was noted, however, that Vang was sent to live with his brothers in Mankato for a duration of time to get away from “the gangster lifestyle.”
As for a motive in this bizarre and senseless killing, those who are familiar with the Purple Brothers gang point to heavy crystal meth use and distribution by members of the gang. The leader of the gang, known to law enforcement as “Fuji”, is reported to have a strong grip on his members. Strong enough, the source close to the gang states, that one phone call is all that is needed for a “hit” to happen.
Whether this was a gang hit is questionable to Officer Straka due to the fact that Vang took his own life. “If this had been a gang-related hit, the kid wouldn’t blow his own head off. He would have been bragging about it.”
Furthermore, the Kong family is adamant that their sons were not involved in gang activities and police records concur with the family.
“The two older brothers were great family guys. They loved their kids and wives and lived a happy family life,” confirmed Ka Lee, a family member who was helping with funeral arrangements. “As for Seng, the little guy, he was just a happy go-lucky kind of kid who everybody liked. He especially didn’t deserve to die that night.”
Will this murder ever get resolved? Will a motive ever be found? Perhaps the answers to these questions will remain forever with the four dead men. Only time will tell.